The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.

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Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Voices in Wartime is a feature-length documentary that delves into the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets – unknown and world-famous. Poets around the world, from the United States and Colombia to Britain and Nigeria to Iraq and India, share their poetry and experiences of war. Soldiers, journalists, historians and experts on combat interviewed in Voices in Wartime add diverse perspectives on war’s effects on soldiers, civilians and society.

The films opens in selected theaters throughout the U.S. beginning April 8. For more information, click on the title of this post.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Cele S. Keeper, 78, retired social worker, (not an oxymoron) long-time Texas Democrat, has been published in The Houston Chronicle, The Texas Observer, an anthology "Noble Generation II", "The Book of Rememberance," an on-line collection of post 9/11 pieces and in various literary magazines.

AIDS epidemic;TB outbreak;music cut out of elementary schools;asbestos postponing the start of school;scandalous special ed.;

lead paint in every apartment;outrageous rent hikes;and now hip hop betraying our children.

Hot, human pee frozen on snow,we survive year after year to findevery other month is Januaryand those in between is December.It is cold in the summer when city hallcuts youth employment.

But we warm ourselves nearthe music radio or the mix tape booming outof someone's bedroom or someone's car;or the live d.j. in the basement jam;or the battle rap outside the bodegaor on a bench echoing off the projectsall around.

Perched on the rooftops, we overseeAlphabet City. From high in the sky,we saw the slumlords burning downfamily homes. Now we see investorsrising up yuppie closet space.We know about those rats below.

With a double consciousness,we are an American eagle.Endangered, sí,but with wings too strongto return south.

From Houston to 14th,east side of the strip,split on 6th, the projects,the feathers, of Avenue D.

Ben Valentin's poem concerns the rapid gentrification taking place in various New York City low-income neighborhoods--in particular the one on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the reactons of long time natives such as Ben himself.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Been reading about Africa againThat dark continent ofSeemingly endlessSadness and barbarity(there but for fortune go we)Tsk tsk tsking my way through theMorning paper shocked at tales ofA woman drowning her five childrenOr a man who devourers his victimsOr a group of racists dragging a manDown a road in Texas until his headBounces off – all this is simplyHORRIBLEAWFULWhat’s wrong with people these days

But when an entire country isDivided by (un)civil war and one tribeDecides that its neighbors deserveNothing better than to be hacked toDeath and raped and/or vice-versaIt barely makes page ten

Or how a woman is rapedIn South AfricaEvery seventeen seconds partlyBecause the stupid SOBs believeThat fucking a virgin purges HIVFrom the body

And now AIDS and HIV isPandemic decimating the populationWith an efficiency that puts HitlerPol Pot and Amin to shameStriking down first the intelligentsiaThen the artists then the teachersThen their studentsLeaving the ignorant to find their wayOr simply wait for death to finallyAppear and take their lastPitiful possession

I read on and on my heart growing heavierWith sadness as if tears might fallHere as I sit reading the paperOver coffee and a croissantI read a graph that says I’m older by tenYears than the average black AfricanThat I earn more in a week thanSome make in a year andI notice there is a growingPressure in my chestAs if boney black fingers wereReaching up off the pagePushing me pulling me begging meAs if each word was a small roundStone and each stone was piling upEach paragraph a bag of stonesStone upon stoneBeing stacked thereAgainst my chestSo I might know the terrible weightOf a continent forgottenEach stone a soulLost to ignoranceEach stone a failed wishDumped at the foot ofAn uncaring world

By the time I finish the articleI am so numbed (stoned) thatEven the next page with itsNumerous well-fed modelsPosed provocatively in lingerieStirs nothing in me

It might as well be a dead catSquashed flat by trafficOr a small round stoneLying innocently on aWeed-choked sidewalkWhere candy wrappersBlow down the street likeUrban tumbleweeds andAfrica finally makes page one

Raindog, AKA RD Armstrong began his most recent incarnation as a poet in the early 90s. He has 15 books including the second printing of his fifteenth (published by 12 Gauge Press), entitled ROADKILL. He has been published in over 75 poetry magazines, including most recently, the Louisiana Review; Flash!Point #5; The Bukowski Review #1; and Unwound Magazine. He has also been published in many anthologies including, Last Call: A Legacy of Madness; An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind - Poets and 9-11; Drinking With Bukowski; Incidental Buildings & Accidental Beauty; and Raising the Roof. His work has also appeared online at over 50 different websites including BigCityLit; Thunder Sandwich; Poetz; and Neidergrässe (Europe). Raindog also publishes a variety of poetry through his Lummox Press, which offers the Lummox Journal, the Little Red Book series (with nearly 50 titles so far), and several other titles including The San Pedro Poems (memories of his days in San Pedro) and LAST CALL: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski (a collection of poems, stories and essays by some 42 writers). http://www.lummoxpress.com

Monday, March 21, 2005

She’s dying, we said 15 years ago.She’s dead. But no. See her smileso slow, how long – look, she lies

there still as yesterday, a some-times smile to see us, or not.Sometimes smiles at nothing

as today drags to tomorrow. Life,we say, is sometimes so closeto death. She never left a will,

she wasn’t ready. So young andsmiling. So strong a will. Butwill has so many meanings.

She said she never wanted to bekept like this, imprisonedin a wordless smile.

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada; she also helps her husband, a retired wildlife biologist, with his field projects. Her poems have appeared in Black Moon, Free Lunch, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

walked throughHeaven's Gatesurprised to finda blank bookopen on a table.

He thumbed a page,bent over to lookat glowing words:early-twenty-firstcentury baby.

They flew throughhis eyes and hefound himself ina dark place,warm and wet.

Suddenly, a metalstick appearedover his head andscraped his chestthrough his brain.

Dead again, butaware he realizedhis wheelchair dream:to be of use oncemore to society.

His stem cells were plantedin a diabetic womanwho was gratefulshe didn't have tolose a leg after all.

Don Kingfisher Campbell is the editor of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, founder of Poetry People youth writing workshops, leader of the Emerging Urban Poets adult writing workshop, and host of Monday Night Poetry in Pasadena, California. His poetry is currently available in the anthologies Open Windows, River Walk Journal, Dirt, Cosmic Brownies, Three Chord Poems, Midnight Mind, So Luminous The Wildflowers, and One Drop To Be The Color Black; and is also viewable in the online journals MindFire Renewed, Hiss Quarterly, Lunarosity, Edifice Wrecked, Poetic Diversity, Writer's Hood, and Poetic Voices. He has published one collection of his poetry "Enter: Selected Poems 1999-2001" on iUniverse Press. You may contact him at poetrypeople@earthlink.net

I would like to make war beautifuldescribing bright white explosive lightStar-like streaming, screaming with powercascading tiers of sparkling sandpallid cheeks blushing with the rush to their Creatora last beautiful touchbefore the transition from this world to the next.

I would like to make war holypraising its cleansing virtues—as it snaps the stalk of life so purely, so deftly—and give hooded terror a godly name, invoking some deityWho, angry as myself, enjoys seeing the warm red blood of his babesspattered upon the hot wind,their limp hands no longer reachingto usurp my star.

I would like to make war justinvoking centuries old karmaassuring that those who died, lived by the swordand must die beautifully by it,in a cosmic mystery wondrous and terriblethat doesn’t, really, involve me.But most of all, from a distant place,through some rapturous pairingof original imagery and meaningful meaningI would like to make war comfort those it has left behindwith beautiful wordsand feel satisfied for my contributionand maybe receive accolades for weaving horror into magic.

But I can’t.

I cannot make war beautiful.I cannot make war holy.I cannot make war just.

Not because words cannot lie.But because we need the truth.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Clyo Beck graduated from Ohio State University and lived in San Jose, California where she studied metaphysical and religious principles. She founded Prayerforce.Org, dedicated to peace and is the author of Prayerforce: 365 Days to a New Life. She lives in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Insurgent Attacks in Iraq Leave 33 Dead By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press WriterBAGHDAD, Iraq -Iraqi insurgents set off bombs and fired rocket-propelledgrenades and automatic weapons at military convoys, checkpointsand police patrols in a spate of violence Mondaythat killed 33 people and wounded dozens...

Pluralism treks into the Sunni wastelandCradled in cocoons of reactive armor;Ideals convoy into the horizonWeathering anger, angst, and rocket launchers.Though hated now as if by HerodDemocracy's birthWill be received by shepherds.

Mark is a Kindergarten teacher at Jakarta International School. He is a loving husband and father of three.

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Emails to The New Verse News that do not follow the guidelines printed at the top of this page and in this column will be deleted. Poets are reminded, therefore, NOT to send attachments unless specifically requested to do so.

Although the editors and audience of The New Verse News have a politically progressive bias, we welcome well-written verses of various visions and viewpoints.

In any event, opinions expressed in The New Verse News are those of the poems' writers (or, perhaps, only of the poems' speakers) and not necessarily those of the editors, the audience, or other contributors to the site.

By submitting work to The New Verse News, each contributor is affirming that the work is entirely her/his own creation, that s/he owns the copyright to the work, that the work has not been previously published in print or posted online (including on personal blogs and social media or even on a private, password-protected location online), and that the work's publication in The New Verse News does not violate the rights of any publication, organization, or individual. The New Verse News thus requires and expects that each poem published herein is the original work of the person, named in the byline, who submits the poem, although it cannot guarantee that this is the case.

The writer retains all other rights to her/his work. The writer of a poem accepted by the editors will be informed of that acceptance simultaneously with the posting of the poem on site. The editors try to respond to submissions within a fortnight.

The New Verse News accepts multiple, but NOT simultaneous submissions. In general, the editors of The New Verse News try not to post the work of any one poet more than once in ten days.

The editors do not have the time to comment on poems submitted to The New Verse News. Even had we the time, we have found from unhappy experiences in the past that editorial feedback is too often the prompt for argument and too infrequently accepted as constructive. Decisions are based on the needs of the journal on any given day and are not at all meant to be judgements on the quality of submitted poems. Many poems rejected by The New Verse News have been eagerly accepted and published by other fine journals.

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The Managing Editor of The New Verse News is James Penha. Interviews with him regarding the editorial policies of the journal are available at:DuotropeSix Questions